I read the Lord of the Rings for the first time in grade nine after my english class read The Hobbit. I started reading The Silmarillion immediately afterwards, but found it impossibly boring and gave up.
During my first year of University, I read The Silmarillion completely and found that, huge parts of it were, in fact, quite boring but the other parts more than made up for that. The boring parts were the ones where Tolkein describes in great detail, the creation of the world, the conflict of the Valar, and Melkor's initial episodes ... the ones where he goes galavanting with Ungoliant (the giant spider) and destroys the glowing trees or something like that. But afterwards, it gets more interesting. The Silmarillion is a collection of stories that are loosely connected because they tell about the Silmarillion, where they came from, how they were made, how Melkor stole them, and how the people of Middle Earth tried to get them back. Finally it tells how, when Melkor is on the verge of winning his very, very long war and enslaving all the peoples of Middle Earth, the Valar (the gods of the Tolkein world) come to Middle Earth and fight The War of Wrath, defeating Melkor once and for all, and imprisoning him.
The Unfinished Tales is kind of like a director's cut of The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings. It's not really interesting on its own, but if you've read The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings, you might find The Unfinished Tales interesting because it fills in a lot of details. It tells the story of what Gandalf and the other wizards are and where they came from, it gives a short history of the palantiri (the seeing stones used by Saruman and Denethor in The Lord of the Rings), it gives the story of Tuor's journey to Gondolin and how he met Ulmo (the god of the sea), it retells the story of Turin Turambar (told originally in The Silmarillion) with greater detail and character building, it tells the story of The Battles of the Fords of Isen and the death of Theodred--battles that occur during the narrative of The Lord of the Rings but do not come into it--if you remember, Aragorn and his company arrive at Edoras in The Two Towers shortly after Theoden has learned that Theodred has been killed by Saruman's orcs at the fords of Isen. It also tells the story of how Isildur actually lost the One Ring and died. Also, as a matter of interest, The Unfinished Tales also contain the only preserved story from Numenor: the story Aldarion and Erendis.
Anyways, if you read The Unfinished Tales on its own, you probably wouldn't find it very interesting, in fact, it could be downright boring because Tolkein fills it with seemingly insignificant details. But if you read The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion and have some understanding of the Tolkein world and are kind of curious about some things, The Unfinished Tales does a great job of filling in a lot of the gaps and the details that might make it boring, if read on its own, actually lend a lot of depth and richness to the narrative.
It is extremely well written, and edited by JRR Tolkein's son, Christoper Tolkein with a great deal of editor's notes to explain the text and to connect it with the known narrative of the other books and to point out certain disagreements between the texts or in Tolkein's unpublished notes. So, in short, I really enjoyed this book, although it took me a really long time to get through it and I found a lot of the editor's notes a little boring and repetitive and academic, not that that's a bad thing, if you're interested in an academic study of Tolkein. And if you are interested in an academic study of Tolkein, let me suggest an essay topic for you: Eurocentrism in Tolkein.
During my first year of University, I read The Silmarillion completely and found that, huge parts of it were, in fact, quite boring but the other parts more than made up for that. The boring parts were the ones where Tolkein describes in great detail, the creation of the world, the conflict of the Valar, and Melkor's initial episodes ... the ones where he goes galavanting with Ungoliant (the giant spider) and destroys the glowing trees or something like that. But afterwards, it gets more interesting. The Silmarillion is a collection of stories that are loosely connected because they tell about the Silmarillion, where they came from, how they were made, how Melkor stole them, and how the people of Middle Earth tried to get them back. Finally it tells how, when Melkor is on the verge of winning his very, very long war and enslaving all the peoples of Middle Earth, the Valar (the gods of the Tolkein world) come to Middle Earth and fight The War of Wrath, defeating Melkor once and for all, and imprisoning him.
The Unfinished Tales is kind of like a director's cut of The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings. It's not really interesting on its own, but if you've read The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings, you might find The Unfinished Tales interesting because it fills in a lot of details. It tells the story of what Gandalf and the other wizards are and where they came from, it gives a short history of the palantiri (the seeing stones used by Saruman and Denethor in The Lord of the Rings), it gives the story of Tuor's journey to Gondolin and how he met Ulmo (the god of the sea), it retells the story of Turin Turambar (told originally in The Silmarillion) with greater detail and character building, it tells the story of The Battles of the Fords of Isen and the death of Theodred--battles that occur during the narrative of The Lord of the Rings but do not come into it--if you remember, Aragorn and his company arrive at Edoras in The Two Towers shortly after Theoden has learned that Theodred has been killed by Saruman's orcs at the fords of Isen. It also tells the story of how Isildur actually lost the One Ring and died. Also, as a matter of interest, The Unfinished Tales also contain the only preserved story from Numenor: the story Aldarion and Erendis.
Anyways, if you read The Unfinished Tales on its own, you probably wouldn't find it very interesting, in fact, it could be downright boring because Tolkein fills it with seemingly insignificant details. But if you read The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion and have some understanding of the Tolkein world and are kind of curious about some things, The Unfinished Tales does a great job of filling in a lot of the gaps and the details that might make it boring, if read on its own, actually lend a lot of depth and richness to the narrative.
It is extremely well written, and edited by JRR Tolkein's son, Christoper Tolkein with a great deal of editor's notes to explain the text and to connect it with the known narrative of the other books and to point out certain disagreements between the texts or in Tolkein's unpublished notes. So, in short, I really enjoyed this book, although it took me a really long time to get through it and I found a lot of the editor's notes a little boring and repetitive and academic, not that that's a bad thing, if you're interested in an academic study of Tolkein. And if you are interested in an academic study of Tolkein, let me suggest an essay topic for you: Eurocentrism in Tolkein.
I had a similar experience...gave up reading Silmarillion at first. So I turned to Unfinished Tales and really enjoyed it (skipped the notes, though).
ReplyDeleteI think the story of Turin Turambar is possibly one of the best Tolkien ever wrote - it's so epic.
Because of that, I would recommend to you a book that Christopher Tolkien put out very recently called "Children of Hurin" which is the entire story of Turin. Unfinished Tales was annoying because it just had segments from the story (and not having read the Silmarillion, it left me a bit confused). Children of Hurin pulls it all together in one narrative (everything from Unfinished Tales is in it, so it may seem repetitive, but it's nice to have it as one book).
Speaking of Tolkien, did you know they're making The Hobbit into 2 movies?
Oh, and it's Tolkien, btw :p
ReplyDelete