J.R.R. Tolkien discussion

Anybody wanting an alternative to our summer read of The Hobbit may find The History of the Hobbit, Volume 1 by John D. Rateliff the thing they're looking for.

The introduction for this book mentions " Also featured are extensive annotations and commentaries on the date of composition, how Tolkien’s professional and early mythological writings influenced the story, the imaginary geography he created, and how he came to revise the book in the years after publication to accommodate events in The Lord of the Rings." I am confused. Is the currently available version of Hobbit the revised book, or are the revisions only available in this book?

The originally published Hobbit was more like the story Tolkien told his children at bedtime and wasn't intended as part of his Middle-earth milieu. As his thoughts about Middle-earth gathered shape and LOTR was conceived, Tolkien revised the earlier story to make it consistent with his larger work.

Ok, here we go: Starting this one today: anybody with me? If not, we'll have a discussion with ourselves, Precious, won't we?

My first impression is a practical one - the edition I have is just too nice to carry around with me! I'll therefore be keeping it at home and reading it here only, so it might take me a bit longer to get through than planned. Now, I need to decide which book is going to be my portable read!

Michael wrote: "Ok, here we go: Starting this one today: anybody with me? If not, we'll have a discussion with ourselves, Precious, won't we?"
Ahahaha! You were serious, weren't you! :D

Oh, yes! Not sure whether I'm channelling my inner Slinker or Stinker, though.

Depends on whether you love or hate the book, I guess

I may be joining you if I convince myself to purchase a copy here in the next couple of days.

I'm still on the introduction, but already loving it!

I read this a couple of years ago, and loved it - especially the references to JRRT's very early work. So I got it out of the library again, and am hoping to actually open it in the not-too-distant future.

Michael wrote: "Anybody wanting an alternative to our summer read of The Hobbit may find The History of the Hobbit, Volume 1 by John D. Rateliff the thing they're looking for."

Having recently seen this nook in the store for the first time, I would REALLY love to read it. Going to finish with a group read of Hobbit and LOTR this summer and then read that in the fall.

Michael wrote: "The originally published Hobbit was essentially the story Tolkien told his children at bedtime and wasn't intended as part of his Middle-earth milieu. As his thoughts about Middle-earth gathered sh..."

I didn't know until recently that when first published, The Hobbit's "Riddles in the Dark" chapter was very different. When Bilbo wins the riddle-game, Gollum gives him a present as his reward. He gives him the Ring. This was later changed, but Tolkien later retconned this version as an alternate telling by Biblo, explained in the introduction to The Fellowship of the Ring as such. Fascinating to think of, how different the whole story could have been.

The thing I'm having most difficulty with is remembering that that "Gandalf" in the original version is actually Thorin!

Well, most the names were drawn from the same section of Völuspá :) I did a brief post on that here, if it's not too obnoxious to put a link in: http://www.davidjonfuller.com/2012/06...

Not obnoxious at all :-)

The derivation of the dwarvish (not dwarfish) names is explained in the book, with Balin being the odd one out. As you say in your post, and as mention in the book, the brother knights Balin/Balan seems the most likely source of his name. Their tragic story is one of my favourite tales from Malory.

Michael wrote: "Not obnoxious at all :-)

The derivation of the dwarvish (not dwarfish) names is explained in the book, with Balin being the odd one out. As you say in your post, and as mention in the book, the br..."

Mine too. I always found the "Dolorous Stroke" so haunting in that tale.

I'm really going to have to get this book! Sorry if I'm repeating obvious stuff in this thread.

To go Arthurian for a minute - Sir Balin is such a tool! I always want to slap him. But, that's an indication of how well drawn his character is. Malory's often criticised for his characters lacking depth and, while there is some justification for that, with Balin and Balan I think you really do get two reasonably well fleshed-out people.

Don't worry about "repeating obvious stuff" - I only knew about the specific name derivation because I just read it. It's all grist to the mill :-)

I've finished the chapter on the "Pryftan Fragment", the earliest version of part of the first chapter that's survived. On it's own, it's a curiosity: "Oh, look, Tolkien changed that word, or crossed out that line, or changed that name. Hmm, interesting." What this book is really about is Rateliff's incredible work of scholarship.

It's the extensive notes that provide the background and depth and helps you to appreciate what Tolkien was doing, what his sources were (often he was being self-referential to his own, then unpublished, works, as we all know), why it was that he changed that little word or sentence and how that made the story better.

This is a two-bookmark volume: one for the text, one for the notes!

Michael wrote: "The thing I'm having most difficulty with is remembering that that "Gandalf" in the original version is actually Thorin!"
Aww, I am having a hard time convincing myself to spend 30$ for this book. It's like having a 'Gollum/Smeagol' type debate with myself!

Slinker or Stinker!!

The copy that I got was listed as used-very good from an Amazon seller and I only paid $8.62 total price with shipping. Search around a bit and find a deal.

Be a Slinker not a Stinker!

haha! alrighty! So are we reading both parts? or just Part 1?

Personally, I'd anticipated reading the first volume now and the second volume some time later - probably to coincide with the release of the films, being a two parter also. However, if enough people want to read them back to back (and it's possible I'll change my mind!), then I can schedule part 2 to be read too.

I'm up to the section that in the finished novel is The Last Homely House chapter.

So far, the most striking difference is the change of some major character names from this to the final version: Gandalf>Thorin; Bladorthin>Gandalf; Pryftan>Smaug. Otherwise, the basic plot is the same and the changes are mainly minor ones, like changing adjectives or tightening up internal chronology.

These things undoubtedly improved the "smoothness" of the final narrative, but I think that only a reader making an academic analysis would be truly fascinated in such editorial changes. As an amateur enthusiast, I'm interested, but could not justify the £20 of the edition I have. But, before you think I'm dismissing the book, I'm not!

What makes the book well worth its price are the extensive notes on the text and Rateliff's commentaries upon Tolkien's characters and themes (which commentaries are further annotated!). These are fascinating and provide a real insight into Tolkien's creative process, development of the legendarium and his mythological and folkloric sources.

I'll "officially" rate the book once I've finished it, but it's well on the way to being 5 stars.

Just got my copy in the mail and will be starting it once I finish . From what I'm reading in your posts, this is one that I should have purchased a long, long time ago.

Gollum! This is a one of the best commentaries so far. Reveals (view spoiler)[a couple of Gollum-like characters in Tolkien's pre-Hobbit works (hide spoiler)] and how originally Gollum (view spoiler)[appears not to have been of Hobbit stock, but rather an indigenous creature of the caves (hide spoiler)].

I really liked the glimpse of Tolkien's home life in the story of how (view spoiler)[the eldest of Tolkien's sons, Michael, would terrorise his younger brothers by imitating the Gollum of their bedtime stories, slinking into their bedrooms at night, torches held in front of his face to simulate Gollum's eyes shining in the dark (hide spoiler)]!

I'm just about to read that section, and I'll pay close attention to these things! And agreed on the home life - being a Tolkien child must have been an amazing experience.

I've read up to the arrival of the Goblins in the cave. Standouts to me so far include the very close links with the early Silmarillion, to the extent that the action of The Hobbit may have been taking place within a hundred years of the fall of Gondolin. (And Elrond didn't claim his great-grandfather's sword!) Also I was rather cheered to realise how rough JRRT's first draft was.

I also enjoyed Mr Rateliff's reference to the hobbit-matriarchs. They were a formidable bunch, Lobelia being inheritrix to a great tradition!

Yeah, it seemed weird to think of the fall of Gondolin being so close in time to The Hobbit. It works much better for that era to be an ancient and legendary one.

As for Elrond not claiming Glamdring, while Rateliff's authorial explanation is undoubtedly the correct and rational one, I prefer to think in terms of the narrative and believe that he realised the sword would do greater work in the hands it had found itself in, rather than hanging on a wall in Rivendell.

The commentary on the Riddles section is fascinating. Following the success of The Hobbit, a rival publisher proposed to print the riddles in a book of poems without paying JRRT any royalties, on the basis that the riddles were all well-known traditional ones, so Tolkien couldn't claim any authorial rights. Tolkien showed in a letter to his publishers that only two of the riddles were wholly traditional and, if he based had based some of the others on those found in medieval works, the particular forms were of his own devising. The other publisher didn't use the riddles, so Tolkien got no royalties, anyway!

The commentary describes the development of riddles in Tolkien's work - another interesting section - on to the lore about Rings!

Michael wrote: "Yeah, it seemed weird to think of the fall of Gondolin being so close in time to The Hobbit. It works much better for that era to be an ancient and legendary one.

As for Elrond not claiming Glamdr..."

It's occurred to me that Elrond was happy for the wizard to have Glamdring, but he might not have been so happy for the dwarf-leader to have it; JRRT never misses a beat, does he?

Who was the original owner of Orcrist? Was it also one of Elrond's family heirlooms?

Probably. Wasn't it used to kill a balrog a la Glamdring?

Michael wrote: "Who was the original owner of Orcrist? Was it also one of Elrond's family heirlooms?"

This article http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Orcrist
suggests it belonged to Ecthelion. Personally, I like to think it was Idril's!

Thanks, Hyarrowen. I couldn't see Ecthelion in Elrond's family tree, although Idril's there.

Why do you think Orcrist might have belonged to Idril?

This wikia page also seems to suggest that it belonged to Echthelion.
http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Orcrist
P.S I have had to drop the book I am currently reading to skim through the Silmarillion again as well as the Unfinished Tales. I wonder if the information is somewhere in the LOTR appendice. My books are back home in India :-/

Michael wrote: "Thanks, Hyarrowen. I couldn't see Ecthelion in Elrond's family tree, although Idril's there.

Why do you think Orcrist might have belonged to Idril?"

If it was of the same quality as Glamdring, it would quite likely have belonged to one of the royal family. Idril carried a sword at the fall of Gondolin - Book of Lost Tales II, p 188: "then she fared about gathering womenfolk and wanderers and speeding them down the tunnel, and smiting marauders with her small band; nor might they dissuade her from carrying a sword."
Idril is a great character.

As a matter of fact, it is also uncertain who the original bearer of Sting was. Also what was it's original name?

Echthelion was an important commander in Turgon's army, not royal, but noble all the same. It could be very well possible that he wielded such an important weapon. I love that it isn't so explicit, so we can discuss and debate!

Onto the section covering Eagles, Bears and Brown Wizards! The commentaries seem to get better with each section, or maybe it's just my enthusiasm for them.

Lots of stuff about the sources for Beorn (or Medwed as he was called at this stage of Tolkien's writings), linking to Beowulf and associated legends - which is all good.

Then, my particular favourite so far, Radagast the Brown!. Radagast has always been a rather mysterious figure, and Rateliff brings together all that Tolkien wrote about him (which is little enough) from both the pre- and post-LotR period. Even Tolkien seemed to be uncertain as to the origins of his name, "Radagast a name of Mannish (Anduin Vale) origin - but now not clearly interpretable".

In trying to recreate the lost Slavic pantheon of gods, a Radegast deity has been mooted as a god of hospitality, although this is about as authentic as the modern Druidic movement (i.e., not at all). Nonethless, there's a nice stature of Radegast the god on a mountain in the Czech Republic

. The statue is modern, but Tolkien would probably have been aware of the speculative pantheon, though whether this is the actual source is not certain (at least not to me as in my enthusiasm I'm writing this before having finished the commentary!).

There's also a Czech-brewed Radegast beer!

This section also touches briefly on the two Blue Wizards and my interest is piqued to read more about them. I've resisted the lures of The Book of Lost Tales and The History of Middle-earth so far, but fear that their shadows begin to loom large!

I've just finished the Medwed (Beorn) chapter. I was fascinated by the light it shed on two of JRRT's most enigmatic characters, Medwed himself and Radagast. Both of them are important but we get told so little about them - I remember being completely baffled by Beorn as a child - but Mr Rateliffe's* insights into the origins of Medwed are quite illuminating. Further illumination would perhaps be counter-productive as the sense of mystery would be lost!

I was also interested in Mr Rateliffe's point that there are very few legends about eagles in the Western tradition. 'But surely there are – and – no, hang on, I can't think of any except the ones he mentions!' My assumptions have been well and truly challenged.

* Dr Rateliffe's. Whoops.

Michael wrote: "Onto the section covering Eagles, Bears and Brown Wizards! The commentaries seem to get better with each section, or maybe it's just my enthusiasm for them.

Lots of stuff about the sources for Beo..."

I didn't get round to looking up the statue, but it has a tremendous presence. I think of Radagast as being rather more scruffy, but the statue has a indefinable affinity with how I see him!

Hyarrowen wrote: "I didn't get round to looking up the statue, but it has a tremendous presence. I think of Radagast as being rather more scruffy, but the statue has a indefinable affinity with how I see him!..."

It's a very striking statue, isn't it? But the links between the Slavic Radegast and Tolkien's Radagast look tenuous. It was probably one of the elements "in the air" when Tolkien was writing, but not a direct source.

I agree about the mystery of these two characters: I want to know more, but that knowledge would probably take away the very thing that interests me in them.

I've just finished the final chapters in Mr Baggins and they've taken me back to my first encounter with The Hobbit - peeking into the book my mother had bought me for holiday reading. The phrase 'Light-elves and Deep-elves and Sea-elves' and the line about how they'd gone to Faerie fascinated me, though I had to wait fifteen years to find out exactly who they were.

I experienced a slight jarring sensation over the use of American spellings in the Mirkwood section – which is fine in the commentary but not in the transcriptions of Tolkien's draft.

I was interesting in the linking of the Wood-elves to elf-shot, i.e. flint arrowheads, and the consequent metal-poor culture of the Wood-elves – even though Dr R gives a plausible case for the Elvenking being an iteration of the early version of Thingol.

Also enjoyed JRRT's deliberate manufacturing of prehistory as regards the ancient rocky valley that became the Long Lake – though I immediately wanted to know how the transformation happened.

Finally I was surprised that Dr R identified the Neolithic settlements in Somerset as the direct inspiration for Laketown. I'd assumed that it was the Swiss lake towns that Tolkien was thinking of – but Somerset is as likely an inspiration as any. I've dug on the Somerset Levels and the possibility never even occurred to me!

I've just finished, too. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant!

I thought that the commentary on the possible identity of the King of the Wood-elves was really interesting. Bear in mind that at the time of the composition of The Hoobit, he had not been given the name Thranduil, and so Tolkien's conception of him is open for analysis.

I'm not going to dive straight into the next volume just yet - too much of a good thing, and all that, but I don't think it will be too long before I do.

A little late to the party but I've just started with The History of the Hobbit single volume edition (this thing weighs a tonne). His thoroughness about *when* the Hobbit was started as discussed in his introduction gives me hope for the rest of the book.

I found it an excellent read, Edward. I've only read the first volume, so far, but will probably read the second early next year.

I look forward to your observations :-)