@PlacidPenguin
If you wanna give them a try, Rob Inglis’s unabridged audiobook versions are terrific. Relatively transparent into the writing, once you are accustomed to his voice. Not a narrator who consciously adds drama - he allows the writing to do that.
I wish that Jackson had avoided some of his blatant alterations, esp in TTT. But some of his filming was wondrous. He made Middle-Earth live and breathe.
You learn to listen to audiobooks by listening to audiobooks. Learned skill. Start with really compelling books, while doing stuff with your hands or feet that leave your brain relatively free. Then keep going with other books. You get good at it.
Because I am never only listening to audiobooks (always also doing other things), I do get distracted. My players are setup to rewind 15 or 30 seconds when I hit the “back” button. I use that feature all the time.
@f00l I believe I have accidentally taught myself that all audio can be rewound, and is probably trivial, anyways, and therefore does not require attention. Sometimes I’ll listen repeatedly to the same 30 seconds or so several times (of a podcast), and keep missing the same couple sentences, as my attention wanders elsewhere.
Then again, I have always been fairly bad at listening to lectures, too, even before podcasts, as far as I can remember.
@PlacidPenguin They are good for long drives. I find that full cast readings, sort of audio plays, hold my attention best. Stephen King’s The Mist, and Jeff Wayne’s Rock Opera War of the Worlds are two favorites I go back to often.
Sometimes I’ll listen repeatedly to the same 30 seconds or so several times (of a podcast), and keep missing the same couple sentences,
I do this. I’m never purely listening, I’m doing other stuff. And so my mind (sic, I assert I have one) is half elsewhere anyway.
The way voices rise and fall, the way certain phrases are spoken, seems to push my mind to wander, as does filler and junk content.
But sometimes those missed phrases contain something I want and didn’t get. So I have to force myself thru it until I make myself get it.
Oh well.
Btw, listening speeded up (I started at 1.25 and now vary between 1.5 and 2.0 depending on the material) helps this. The material moves faster, so your focus stays closer.
The voice timbres don’t sound weird when you do this - the SW shortens the spaces between the words.
I started listening during my commute to work because I lost interest in music and became horribly frustrated with talk radio. I figured I’d give Audible a shot. It was exactly the solution for me. My round trip drive is a bit over an hour, and audio books fills this time perfectly. I’ve been listening for a couple of years now and have digested around a hundred books I would never otherwise have the patience to read.
Relevant to this topic, I just finished The Hobbit a couple of months ago. I saw all 3 movies when they were released, and figured I’d give the original source a shot. Turns out I’m more of a Peter Jackson fan than a Tolkien fan I guess. I didn’t hate the book, but I enjoyed the movies quite a bit.
@ruouttaurmind
If you haven’t done Rob Inglis’s unabridged LOTR, you will prob like that t much better than The Hobbit. The Hobbit started as a bedtime story for his pre-school kids. LOTR was intended from the outset for adults.
@f00l It’s funny that you mention speeding up podcasts. I’ve been slowing them back down lately. It’s a little bit about aesthetics (timing and pace, rather than pitch), but mostly because the sped-up audio would blur past me even faster, capturing even less attention. I feel like it gets closer to white noise when it goes fast enough. It could be partially the quality of my speakers.
I listen with Overcast at around 1.25x, usually, with smart speed enabled. Shows where people talk slowly or don’t say much get 1.5x or faster.
If you’re using an Apple device, do you know if they ever fixed that bug where the speed up was reported to be faster than it actually was (across several apps, owing to an audio library bug)? (A couple years ago or so, I remember being surprised at how fast 2x was, when I switched podcast players.)
@f00l It was Inglis’ unabridged The Hobbit I listened to, and I had no complaints about the narration (though the recording quality was mediocre). I’ll have a listen to the sample of LOTR and consider adding it to my library.
I listen using Overcast in an IPhone. I didnt know about the iPhone bug.
I figure for news and non-fiction, I don’t need a full awareness of every word, just an idea what they’re saying. Seems to mostly work well to my purposes. I run those at close to 2.0. I didn’t start at that speed, I just kept wanting to ramp it up over time.
I’m sure I miss stuff. How much that matters depends on the material. Scientific type stuff, even written for a popular audience, I gotta slow it down. Unless I’m just after “the gist” and don’t care about the leavings.
Lit and fiction, not nearly so fast as news. More like 1.25 to 1.5. I vary the speed by the book, and if the book is a fav, sometimes by the passage.
Sometimes I re-listen on purpose. With the LeCarre “Karla” trilogy (Cold War spy novels) I replay the conversations, esp the bureaucratic ones, again and again. There’s so much “understood and implied” if I go digging for it.
Never seen nor read. However, spouse liked both (books more than movie) then they went and did the all famous take a book and split in two movies for more money thing with the hobbit and now he is disheartened.
@f00l That is why the dislike - because it was done for Hollywood and not for the fans who grew up reading the books and allowing their imagination to fill in what the words meant to them. Apparently, and not for my perspective, Hobbit could have been accomplished in one film and done justice to the book. As far as LOTR the split was okay, but not Hobbit. I’ve only seen bits and pieces of LOTR since they replay it, and Harry Potter and Star Wars, over and over and over again on T.V…
@f00l
PJ dis want to make these films out of genuine love of the books, and in many LOTR scenes he succeeded. I think he got closest in FOTR. One of the reasons the films have so many great moments is that PJ favored casting actors instead of enormous stars. Another reason is that they were made for love. And another is that they were made in NZ, which not only meant they were far cheaper to make, but also far far away from the Hollywood “geniuses and suits” would would have messed with the script, filming, and editing to a far greater degree had it been easier to do so.
These films were budgeted at $200M or so up front. At the time, Hollywood insiders thought New Line and other financial parties to the deal were simply insane. Much betting was that the LOTR trilogy would bankrupt New Line in the way Heaven’s Gate bankrupted UA. Of course films mess with the original materials. They cost so much, require so much in the way of upfront money, promotional and marketing budgets and distribution deals, technology, soundstages, fx crews, cgi crews, along with the usual cinema-tech that inevitably the people who put up the huge amounts of money, and the people who invest their lives in the filmmaking, all want as much as say possible, even if it comes as the expense of the original work. If you want the money, you get the egos to go with.
That’s just the bare minimum necessary to have an industry that can produce anything other than inexpensive indies.
Most of the power players in Hollywood genuinely love great writing and great films. And they all pretty much think they know how to make everything even better.
@f00l I also agree on the to many chefs in the kitchen mucking up what could be great films. My problem these days is when they keep making more movies when they should have stopped at one or two (Aliens, Matrix, Resident Evil, Star Wars and so on). But what really frosts my cookies is all of these “remakes” from movies already made. Shouldn’t mess with classics. Nobody has an original thought these days and if they do, as you pointed out, it takes too much money and multiple in-put from higher ups who don’t have a clue. On a side note: I do prefer Orlando Bloom (I think that’s who it was) with long white hair. Forgive me if I just trampled on your love of the films it was not meant it was just an observation/opinion.
@f00l At SDCC, Peter Jackson was telling the story of pitching the LOTR films. His pitch asked for two movies, it was the best he thought he could sell. The exec he was talking to asked “Isn’t this a trilogy?” Jackson said yes. “Then we should do three movies.” Jackson said something to the effect of wanting to kiss the guy. We have to remember that, while this material is sacred to a tiny subset of the population, films have to attract a huge number of viewers to make a profit. Film makers must balance the interests of the many with the dedication of the few and hopefully produce something reasonably true to the material but having the characteristics of a blockbuster film. With some material this is easy, with more cerebral stuff it’s harder.
@WTFsunshine
Orlando Bloom as an elf is way hot. Agree.
Hollywood is Hollywood. It operates in an insane way. Every film is an enormous financial gamble. Right now the audience is teenagers, kids, twentysomethimgs who like cgi and comic books type stories. That’s where the money is so that’s what they do.
Every so often someone does something serious.
I love films, but stopped trying to see everything released the late 1980’s or early 1990’s. Since then I’ve prob seen something fewer than 200 new release films, over 25 years. Perhaps fewer than 100. Perhaps fewer than 50. Not sure.
Not saying new films aren’t worth seeing. Just … perhaps someday.
@jqubed
The Hobbit was - obviously - written for pre-schoolers, as all the arch asides by the narrator make clear.
The LOTR books are something else entirely. The first book does start slow. It was easier for a generation of readers in the 1960’s to have the time and patience to get into it.
@jqubed the Hobbit is far better as a bedtime story, which was essentially it’s purpose. LOTR is much more adult in it’s tone. You may enjoy it. Ultimately, though, you aren’t missing much.
@f00l I hated reading until college and still managed to read the whole trilogy for fun in high school. If you have a good imagination these books are amazing. But I get why kids raised on cable TV and video games won’t read these. And it makes me sad.
@jqubed I’ve always joked that Tolkein was clearly paid by the word. Tolkein’s pace is just too slow for me. I similarly was forced to read The Hobbit in school and found that, although I enjoyed the story, it was one of the most boring and cumbersome books I’d ever read. I picked up LOTR a few times but just couldn’t make headway. I tried the audiobooks but even though I have listened to many audiobooks when I travel these were such yawners they weren’t safe to drive with. I am glad they made the films as it opened a doorway to material that I’d been unable to enjoy in it’s original format.
@moondrake You couldn’t have described my experience any better. I did like the Hobbit, but I could not get through the second book of LOTR. So boring and slow paced. And repetitive.
@jqubed For those looking for something like “Tolkein Lite”, I suggest Stephen R Donaldson’s series: The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.
Lord Foul’s Bane, Illearth War, etc.
I found them far more enjoyable and easier to read as an early teen.
I first real The Hobbit and LOTR in elementary school. I was already quite the little reader. My best friend at the time had an older brother in college who read them there and then brought copies home. First hardbacks, then paperbacks.
She and I would read them before and after school, during recess, and during class under our desks. The teacher would make us put them away, but not take them from us - I think she was a little impressed.
Bit this was another era. Where it was commonplace to see a normal “not-intellectual” high school student casually reading a non-assigned John Locke or Heidegger or Montaigne or Emerson in paperback in the park or something.
I picked up LOTR a few times but just couldn’t make headway. I tried the audiobooks but even though I have listened to many audiobooks when I travel these were such yawners they weren’t safe to drive with.
I have a bunch of friends who never made it past the slow intro to LOTR.
If you pay attention during the “The Shadow of the Past” chapter, and then make it as far as Weathertop, by then Tolkien’s writing and storytelling rhythm have kicked in. It gets way better after that.
Just skip past the songs and after that it’s good, unless it’s simply not to your taste at all.
Some of his writing is incredible. And gorgeous. I can’t think of any writer of the past 200 years who could imitate his style. Even parodies would be lame, if they were intended as stylistic parodies.
Sometimes I will stop and re-read simple scenery descriptions. But … you gotta make it to Weathertop first
His publishers couldn’t edit him. The editors didn’t have the needed skills. They just made suggestions on pacing, most of which he ignored. He had to do the full edits himself, which is incredibly difficult (editing yourself, I mean). He couldn’t afford a typist. He wound up typing the whole thing out himself 3 or 4 times.
When he worked on the OED, they gave him all the hard or wayward words no one else could do.
He prob knew the entire history of every word he used and every literary form he touched.
His invented languages are full languages. He had a bunch more. He was inventing full speakable, literary-depth languages before he learned to read, I think.
/giphy movies are about the best we’ll get, and the books only hold as well as they do thanks be the first in a very popular genre. At least the movies dropped Tom
@PlacidPenguin lotr as 3 books. Really the story climaxes at Helm’s Deep for me on either format. After that, pacing crumbles, and you get a lot of bloat. The book does it better, but it’s still not great. As for the Hobbit, the best format for that will always be the book, read aloud. It is rarely done poorly. Unlike Hobbit films. Seriously, Leonard Nimoy singing the Ballad of Bilbo Baggins is the closest we’ve come to a good Hobbit movie.
Fantasy sucks. Didn’t read the books, because Tolkien sucks. Had high hopes for the movies (not really), because “Brain Dead” and “Bad Taste” freakin’ kill man - deep stuff. Alas, it was a boring snooze-fest. Not enough brains, not enough gore. What the fuck, Peter?
@PlacidPenguin I know that it’s “Star Wars” + “Harry Potter” kinda stuff. Both of which suck too (haven’t seen either). So I base my educated opinion on that.
@PlacidPenguin I’ve seen the Family Guy remakes of Star Wars and also a 10-minute extract from the 1999 movie, so I believe I am qualified to judge it. As for Harry Potter… No clue, really.
@SSteve Not really, I am just providing a dissenting viewpoint, of which I have many (@f00l won’t let me lie, as he probably read each and every post of mine). It’s always constructive to form a multi-dimensional picture instead of a choir of similar opinions, right? Otherwise it ends up being too one-sided.
Nobody now remembers what trolling meant, when it was coined (not so long ago). It quickly became a fad word used for nearly any and all objectionable communication on the Internet.
Words should have meaning. Thank you for remembering.
I wish there was a “Have done both, love both” option. I read The Hobbit in the mid-70s when I was in junior high. I then tried LOTR but was a little too young to make it far into the first book. I never got around to trying again before the movies. So coming into the movies I was a little familiar with Bilbo and Gollem, but everything else was new. I didn’t bring any attachments with me so I was oblivious to Jackson’s departures from the books. I thought the movies were magical. Then I read the books and thought they were magical too.
I need some advice with regards to proper placement for Unfinished Tales, Beren and Luthien, and The Silmarillon in my closet.
I don’t plan on reading any of them, though I know the general idea of each of them.
Would they fit better on a shelf dedicated to book series (where they’d be lying horizontal), or on a shelf dedicated to misc books (where they’d be vertical) ?
@SSteve i love this. Whenever i read a book i am reluctant to then see the movie (but still usually do unless it is Stephen King because most of his movies are horrible compared to the books). But i do like seeing a movie then reading the book sometimes: best of both because of the order.
Books are almost always better: more detail but more of your imagination involved, too.
Would they fit better on a shelf dedicated to book series (where they’d be lying horizontal), or on a shelf dedicated to misc books (where they’d be vertical) ?
My book series shelf is overcrowded. When I kept A Series of Unfortunate Events there, they had to lie horizontal on top of 2 1/2 book series in stacks.
My shelf for misc books has room (especially since I moved a series from there to my book series shelf), and if I keep the 3 mentioned books there, they could be positioned vertically.
While doing the latter WOULD give them more room, technically they are connected to LotR.
However, they’re not necessarily DIRECTLY connected, which is why they shouldn’t go on my book series shelf.
Most of the Silmarillon is a huge overview of stuff from that happened 3000+ years in the past. It includes a full poetic creation story, and conflicts between metaphoric angels of dark and light, and falls from grace.
After a while the humans show up and the tales become much more normal.
Many people find it unreadable. Others sorta slog thru it. Much is written in high archaic speech appropriate for declaiming legends, not storytelling voices. The makes it rewarding to some, but hard going for many or most. The 2nd half of the book is much more readable than the first half.
There are some familiar characters with cameos: Elrond, Galadriel, Gandalf, Cirdan, Sauron, Saruman, perhaps I’m forgetting someone. Also Aragorn’s ancestors (this is a big deal).
Some of the stories are heartbreakingly beautiful.
I have never read all of "Unfinished Tales, but I believe they mostly concerns extending telling of a few stories from the Silmarillon and many stories the era between the climactic battle of the Silmarillon and the Hobbit/LOTR era. The stuff I’ve seen is pretty readable.
The two other books: “The Children Of Huron” and “Beren and Luthien” are novelistic expansions of two stories from The Silmarillon.
Both have humans (this is essential to Tolkien’s ability to tell a story that flows and makes you see it as it happens). If there are no humans, he tends to go a bit into archaic speech.
He loved that Beowulf-type stuff and he was possibly the most knowledgeable and influential scholar of his era on those sorts of texts.
The Silmarillion basically covers events from the beginning of “mythological time” thru the creation of the phisical universe (by music) and the thru the earliest years of elves, men, and dwarves. It starts with creation and with history of Tolkien’s versions of “angels”, the chief of whom falls into darkness thru pride, and who created much of the subsequent evil, including orcs, trolls, balrogs, dragons, and giant spiders.
Then some of the remaining “angels” settle on earth to get it prepared for the beings to come. They shape the world, thru many trials. Finally the dwarves and elves appear. In the meantime the most powerful fallen angel has corrupted other angels including Sauron, his chief second-in-command. There are a lot of wars and terrible crimes (which can be quite moving as myth in their own right and can be worth the reading).
Finally mortal humans show up. All the wars temporarily in abeyance start up again.
Near the end of the book (and the end of the “First Age”) come the stories of Beren and Luthien, and during the same time, a few years later, the story of Hurin and his children.
Finally the first and most powerful fallen angel is defeated, and the world is changed.
The Silmarillon also contains some notes on later events.
Unfinished Tales mostly concerns concerns the next period, the “Second Age”, and goes into what happened next to men, elves, and dwarves. It goes into the origins of Wizards.
At the end of the “Second Age” there is another big event, and the world and the political order are again changed. This book also has some notes on later times.
The Hobbit and LOTRtake place about 3000 years or so into the “Third Age”. The end of LOTR tells the very beginning of the “Fourth Age”.
So there is a sort of a sequence.
JRRT apparently wrote many drafts of every story and changed details and names. His universe was enormous, and he never got around to retconning it all into coherence.
He left so many notes and papers that when The Silmarillon and Unfinished Tales were published, his literary executors had then only gone thru only a fraction of the materials.
You might want to try out each of the 3 novella-length Tales of Dunk and Egg. Set in Westeros about 90 years before the beginning of GOT. Also very good, and perhaps far more to your taste.
Incidentally, JRRT also has Lost Tales 1 and 2. I haven’t read those yet, either. I think, like Unfinished Tales, most of those fill in parts of the backstory and history, but I could be wrong.
@RiotDemon The cartoon adaptations of LotR/RotK were something special also. That they didn’t even go together was just a bonus. Man there’s some weird stuff in there, but I still love them in their own way.
@RiotDemon
In the opening scenes of the first Hobbit film, that clip where you see Richard Armitage hammering metal is there on purpose. For the reason you think it’s there.
@f00l haha, I was just writing a comment that Armitage is just ok.
I only got to watch the Hobbit once… It’s odd that Thorin didn’t catch my eye that much until I was watching the second one with my partner who at the time had long hair as well. Then the similarities of their faces made me watch the last movie in a whole different light.
The LOTR movies were good; the Hobbit movies were a sell-out and an embarrassment, although it was nice to see Beorn make an appearance. Mostly they were an extended Hollywood chase scene; they couldn’t be troubled to have Gollum ask all his riddles or Smaug say all of his boasts. If somebody remixes
Props to the cartoon version of The Hobbit.
I only read “The Hobbit” as a youngster, and when the LOTR movies came out, I remarked to my Tolkien-geek friends that Gollum was way different than I remembered. My recollection was he was a playful, relatively harmless imp and that he and Bilbo part amicably when Bilbo bests him in the riddle game. They told me my recall was way off.
Turns out, Tolkien actually revised Hobbit after the LOTR books came out to match them in tone. I had read the old version and my memory of the Gollum character was pretty accurate.
@DrWorm I think Tolkien retro-conned that by saying the new version of the riddle scene was more accurate and the original was Bilbo’s more colorful memory of it. The real reason, of course, is that he didn’t decide until later (LOTR) that the ring itself had much greater significance.
@DrWorm
If you read the original version of the Riddles in the Dark chapter as a kid, it’s interesting that you got that version. Copies of the 1937-1938 Hobbit have been going for thousands on the used book market ever since the 1960’s. Some of the cost what a house would cost, if they are in great shape with dust jacket.
Yeah, JRRT, when he decided to do a sequel for adults, needed the germ of an idea for a long story, and started with the ring and the Necromancer. So he had to make the ring dangerous. So he had to make Gollum pathetic and corrupted, a “fallen Hobbit”. He would need those characteristics in Gollum, for the thematic cycle, that the ring, in a way, helps to bring about its own end, and that Gollum, who only lives for want of it, ironically gets it in the end and, in a twisted sense, keeps his promises to Frodo.
So JRRT re-wrote Riddles In The Dark to suit the new version of the ring.
@f00l I have a sibling that is 14 years older than me and I know he read that copy when he was a kid. It would have been in our family certainly since the early/mid 50’s, possibly earlier. Probably wound up being sold at a garage sale for a quarter.
Too bad your childhood copy may be lost. Worth taking a look for it perhaps, or are you sure it’s gone? That would be a find.
On eBay the cheapest US original version I can find is $949. The U.K. Versions are always much much more expensive. The cheapest one I see is over $15K.
Here are the original and the revised version of “Riddles in the Dark” side by side for comparison.
I think The Annotated Hobbit also has extensive notes on this.
There were a few other changes in various editions (I have heard), and a few other differences between the 1937 version and the later big edit to match up to LOTR, but the rest of the changes were tiny. A word here or there, nothing to change anyone’s character or the nature of the story.
Tolkien even retconned a justification for the change in that chapter into LOTR.
In the 1937 version, “Riddles In the Dark” matches up pretty well to the story Bilbo tells the Dwarves after they find out that he has a special means to rescue them.
The later correctional idea is that he was embarrassed by the truth, not sure he hadn’t unfairly deceived Gollum, and wasn’t sure he really had a right to the ring; but the ring was already working on him, and under its influence, he wished to keep it a secret and entirely his. it took a long time to tell anyone, and then he prettied up the story and dissembled, which was supposedly very unlike him.
Then he got home and wrote up the fake version into the story that became the original Hobbit.
But Gandalf never believed that version, and finally got the true story out of Bilbo. So then Bilbo wrote up a second version of his adventure, this one the honest one. And in the years before LOTR the only two who saw either version was Gandalf and Frodo.
And all that is discussed early in Fellowship.
“Riddles in the Dark” contains some very clever and insightful literary uses of simple phrases, riddles, and images. Tolkien maybe archaic, but he knew what he was doing as a writer.
@darksaber99999
The US audio drama versions are a disaster. Many of the actors played multiple roles, they recorded the lines separately and alone instead of interactively. Just really bad.
But … they are about the only dramatic version that ever left in Tom Bombadil.
All those elf songs or whatever really turned me off the books. I couldn’t deal. A shame too, because as child I saw a LOTR cartoon that motivated me to read them, but it was not to be.
@ACraigL
The songs are often an annoying PITA, with a few exceptions.
Tolkien was a medievalist and loved that stuff. So he self-indulged. Although, in his defense, the songs would make far sense to pre-industrial civilizations with no mass media.
Most of the poems and verses make a modern reader cringe. The best ones are in elvish, or else the Rohirrim get them.
If you want to read the books otherwise, just skip them or skim them.
Not much wrong with this lament;
Where now are the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?
Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?
Where is the harp on the harpstring, and the red fire glowing?
Where is the spring and the harvest and the tall corn growing?
They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow;
The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow.
Who shall gather the smoke of the deadwood burning,
Or behold the flowing years from the Sea returning?
An abbreviated version is beautifully done in the TTT film by Bernard Hill, playing Theoden
Incidentally, both the BBC radio play production and and the Rob Inglis audiobooks do pretty well with the verse and poetry, even the worst of it.
Turns out to be way better to listen to and way worse to read, at least when it’s well-performed by someone who can pull it off.
I read the books, did a book report for “The Hobbit” in maybe the 6th grade (in the 60’s).
The books really set your imagination going, also it required you to keep track of different characters and plots.
The LOTR books, that I read sometime in junior high school, did the same, but with more plots to keep going in your mind as you read along.
I’m glad I didn’t see the movies until much later. The movie interpretation of what the characters looked like was much different than mine. The orcs were much scarier-looking than I ever imagined in my mind! I did like the movies, if just to follow what I remember from the books.
I do consider these to be among the best fictional/fantasy books for school-age kids to read.
Gave up on the books after I can’t even remember how many damn chapters of Tom Bombadil’s Adventures in Doing Absolutely Nothing of Consequence Whatsoever
@InfidelCastro
Bombadil has stopped a bunch of readers. Many aficionados love him, but … Bombadil is a total writer self-indulgence. Tolkien basically used him in part just so that he could play around with certain kinds of verse and certain sorts of Nordic myths.
If you were to try again, perhaps just skip all that and start at A Knife In The Dark.
Incidentally, some of Bombadil’s speech is pretty good. So the films stole those lines from Bombadil and gave them to Treebeard.
PJ and the screenwriters did a lot of stealing words and phrases from one place and putting them elsewhere, in order to keep as many of Tolkien’s best phrases and passages in the film, when they were clipping the books down to screenplays.
Read The Hobbit before the Hobbit movies came out. Definitely preferred the book and wasn’t a fan of all of the movies (I liked Desolation of Smaug). They really should have made one.
Saw the LOTR movies. I guess I was worn out from hobbit overload because I started reading Fellowship of the Ring and just stopped. Would like to finish them someday.
Books have a power which movies don’t: They encourage imagination.
Every time I read a book series, my mind goes places which are otherwise unaccessible through on-screen adaptations.
@PlacidPenguin
If you wanna give them a try, Rob Inglis’s unabridged audiobook versions are terrific. Relatively transparent into the writing, once you are accustomed to his voice. Not a narrator who consciously adds drama - he allows the writing to do that.
I wish that Jackson had avoided some of his blatant alterations, esp in TTT. But some of his filming was wondrous. He made Middle-Earth live and breathe.
@PlacidPenguin This vid takes your mind to places that are otherwise inaccessible through books.
Videos rule, books drool.
@mike808
: )
@f00l
If you will have only learned one thing about me, I would have no problem with it being this:
I don’t ‘do’ audiobooks. My mind wanders easily.
@PlacidPenguin
You put on the headphones and do other things.
You learn to listen to audiobooks by listening to audiobooks. Learned skill. Start with really compelling books, while doing stuff with your hands or feet that leave your brain relatively free. Then keep going with other books. You get good at it.
Because I am never only listening to audiobooks (always also doing other things), I do get distracted. My players are setup to rewind 15 or 30 seconds when I hit the “back” button. I use that feature all the time.
@f00l
I’ve tried them.
The experiences have been less than pleasant for me.
@f00l I believe I have accidentally taught myself that all audio can be rewound, and is probably trivial, anyways, and therefore does not require attention. Sometimes I’ll listen repeatedly to the same 30 seconds or so several times (of a podcast), and keep missing the same couple sentences, as my attention wanders elsewhere.
Then again, I have always been fairly bad at listening to lectures, too, even before podcasts, as far as I can remember.
@PlacidPenguin They are good for long drives. I find that full cast readings, sort of audio plays, hold my attention best. Stephen King’s The Mist, and Jeff Wayne’s Rock Opera War of the Worlds are two favorites I go back to often.
@mike808 i can’t decide if i liked it or it scarred me for life.
@InnocuousFarmer
I do this. I’m never purely listening, I’m doing other stuff. And so my mind (sic, I assert I have one) is half elsewhere anyway.
The way voices rise and fall, the way certain phrases are spoken, seems to push my mind to wander, as does filler and junk content.
But sometimes those missed phrases contain something I want and didn’t get. So I have to force myself thru it until I make myself get it.
Oh well.
Btw, listening speeded up (I started at 1.25 and now vary between 1.5 and 2.0 depending on the material) helps this. The material moves faster, so your focus stays closer.
The voice timbres don’t sound weird when you do this - the SW shortens the spaces between the words.
@moondrake
I started listening during my commute to work because I lost interest in music and became horribly frustrated with talk radio. I figured I’d give Audible a shot. It was exactly the solution for me. My round trip drive is a bit over an hour, and audio books fills this time perfectly. I’ve been listening for a couple of years now and have digested around a hundred books I would never otherwise have the patience to read.
Relevant to this topic, I just finished The Hobbit a couple of months ago. I saw all 3 movies when they were released, and figured I’d give the original source a shot. Turns out I’m more of a Peter Jackson fan than a Tolkien fan I guess. I didn’t hate the book, but I enjoyed the movies quite a bit.
@ruouttaurmind
If you haven’t done Rob Inglis’s unabridged LOTR, you will prob like that t much better than The Hobbit. The Hobbit started as a bedtime story for his pre-school kids. LOTR was intended from the outset for adults.
Although it starts S…L…O…W…
@f00l It’s funny that you mention speeding up podcasts. I’ve been slowing them back down lately. It’s a little bit about aesthetics (timing and pace, rather than pitch), but mostly because the sped-up audio would blur past me even faster, capturing even less attention. I feel like it gets closer to white noise when it goes fast enough. It could be partially the quality of my speakers.
I listen with Overcast at around 1.25x, usually, with smart speed enabled. Shows where people talk slowly or don’t say much get 1.5x or faster.
If you’re using an Apple device, do you know if they ever fixed that bug where the speed up was reported to be faster than it actually was (across several apps, owing to an audio library bug)? (A couple years ago or so, I remember being surprised at how fast 2x was, when I switched podcast players.)
@f00l It was Inglis’ unabridged The Hobbit I listened to, and I had no complaints about the narration (though the recording quality was mediocre). I’ll have a listen to the sample of LOTR and consider adding it to my library.
@ruouttaurmind
Just be warned that you have to get to Weathertop before it kicks into gear.
Even then it’s not fast. But he finds a good rhythm.
@InnocuousFarmer
I listen using Overcast in an IPhone. I didnt know about the iPhone bug.
I figure for news and non-fiction, I don’t need a full awareness of every word, just an idea what they’re saying. Seems to mostly work well to my purposes. I run those at close to 2.0. I didn’t start at that speed, I just kept wanting to ramp it up over time.
I’m sure I miss stuff. How much that matters depends on the material. Scientific type stuff, even written for a popular audience, I gotta slow it down. Unless I’m just after “the gist” and don’t care about the leavings.
Lit and fiction, not nearly so fast as news. More like 1.25 to 1.5. I vary the speed by the book, and if the book is a fav, sometimes by the passage.
Sometimes I re-listen on purpose. With the LeCarre “Karla” trilogy (Cold War spy novels) I replay the conversations, esp the bureaucratic ones, again and again. There’s so much “understood and implied” if I go digging for it.
Is that the one with Froyo?
@mike808 That was awful and unwatchable. Thanks!
Never seen nor read. However, spouse liked both (books more than movie) then they went and did the all famous take a book and split in two movies for more money thing with the hobbit and now he is disheartened.
@WTFsunshine
Re: the Hobbit and the three films: Jackson had to do that, the studios wanted the money.
The Hobbit films are still quite watchable, with moments that go well beyond that. The LOTR films are quite fine.
Hollywood is Hollywood. All about money and ego. If you are a writer, take the money, run, and don’t look back at what they do to your work.
@f00l That is why the dislike - because it was done for Hollywood and not for the fans who grew up reading the books and allowing their imagination to fill in what the words meant to them. Apparently, and not for my perspective, Hobbit could have been accomplished in one film and done justice to the book. As far as LOTR the split was okay, but not Hobbit. I’ve only seen bits and pieces of LOTR since they replay it, and Harry Potter and Star Wars, over and over and over again on T.V…
@f00l
PJ dis want to make these films out of genuine love of the books, and in many LOTR scenes he succeeded. I think he got closest in FOTR. One of the reasons the films have so many great moments is that PJ favored casting actors instead of enormous stars. Another reason is that they were made for love. And another is that they were made in NZ, which not only meant they were far cheaper to make, but also far far away from the Hollywood “geniuses and suits” would would have messed with the script, filming, and editing to a far greater degree had it been easier to do so.
These films were budgeted at $200M or so up front. At the time, Hollywood insiders thought New Line and other financial parties to the deal were simply insane. Much betting was that the LOTR trilogy would bankrupt New Line in the way Heaven’s Gate bankrupted UA. Of course films mess with the original materials. They cost so much, require so much in the way of upfront money, promotional and marketing budgets and distribution deals, technology, soundstages, fx crews, cgi crews, along with the usual cinema-tech that inevitably the people who put up the huge amounts of money, and the people who invest their lives in the filmmaking, all want as much as say possible, even if it comes as the expense of the original work. If you want the money, you get the egos to go with.
That’s just the bare minimum necessary to have an industry that can produce anything other than inexpensive indies.
Most of the power players in Hollywood genuinely love great writing and great films. And they all pretty much think they know how to make everything even better.
@f00l I also agree on the to many chefs in the kitchen mucking up what could be great films. My problem these days is when they keep making more movies when they should have stopped at one or two (Aliens, Matrix, Resident Evil, Star Wars and so on). But what really frosts my cookies is all of these “remakes” from movies already made. Shouldn’t mess with classics. Nobody has an original thought these days and if they do, as you pointed out, it takes too much money and multiple in-put from higher ups who don’t have a clue. On a side note: I do prefer Orlando Bloom (I think that’s who it was) with long white hair. Forgive me if I just trampled on your love of the films it was not meant it was just an observation/opinion.
@f00l At SDCC, Peter Jackson was telling the story of pitching the LOTR films. His pitch asked for two movies, it was the best he thought he could sell. The exec he was talking to asked “Isn’t this a trilogy?” Jackson said yes. “Then we should do three movies.” Jackson said something to the effect of wanting to kiss the guy. We have to remember that, while this material is sacred to a tiny subset of the population, films have to attract a huge number of viewers to make a profit. Film makers must balance the interests of the many with the dedication of the few and hopefully produce something reasonably true to the material but having the characteristics of a blockbuster film. With some material this is easy, with more cerebral stuff it’s harder.
@moondrake
Yeah, I give the New Line guy (forget his name) huge points for agreeing to three films.
Brave choice.
@WTFsunshine
Orlando Bloom as an elf is way hot. Agree.
Hollywood is Hollywood. It operates in an insane way. Every film is an enormous financial gamble. Right now the audience is teenagers, kids, twentysomethimgs who like cgi and comic books type stories. That’s where the money is so that’s what they do.
Every so often someone does something serious.
I love films, but stopped trying to see everything released the late 1980’s or early 1990’s. Since then I’ve prob seen something fewer than 200 new release films, over 25 years. Perhaps fewer than 100. Perhaps fewer than 50. Not sure.
Not saying new films aren’t worth seeing. Just … perhaps someday.
I was required to read The Hobbit in 6th grade. It left me with zero desire to read any of the other books or watch the movies.
@jqubed
The Hobbit was - obviously - written for pre-schoolers, as all the arch asides by the narrator make clear.
The LOTR books are something else entirely. The first book does start slow. It was easier for a generation of readers in the 1960’s to have the time and patience to get into it.
@f00l
@jqubed the Hobbit is far better as a bedtime story, which was essentially it’s purpose. LOTR is much more adult in it’s tone. You may enjoy it. Ultimately, though, you aren’t missing much.
@f00l I hated reading until college and still managed to read the whole trilogy for fun in high school. If you have a good imagination these books are amazing. But I get why kids raised on cable TV and video games won’t read these. And it makes me sad.
@jqubed I’ve always joked that Tolkein was clearly paid by the word. Tolkein’s pace is just too slow for me. I similarly was forced to read The Hobbit in school and found that, although I enjoyed the story, it was one of the most boring and cumbersome books I’d ever read. I picked up LOTR a few times but just couldn’t make headway. I tried the audiobooks but even though I have listened to many audiobooks when I travel these were such yawners they weren’t safe to drive with. I am glad they made the films as it opened a doorway to material that I’d been unable to enjoy in it’s original format.
@moondrake You couldn’t have described my experience any better. I did like the Hobbit, but I could not get through the second book of LOTR. So boring and slow paced. And repetitive.
@jqubed For those looking for something like “Tolkein Lite”, I suggest Stephen R Donaldson’s series: The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.
Lord Foul’s Bane, Illearth War, etc.
I found them far more enjoyable and easier to read as an early teen.
@moondrake
I first real The Hobbit and LOTR in elementary school. I was already quite the little reader. My best friend at the time had an older brother in college who read them there and then brought copies home. First hardbacks, then paperbacks.
She and I would read them before and after school, during recess, and during class under our desks. The teacher would make us put them away, but not take them from us - I think she was a little impressed.
Bit this was another era. Where it was commonplace to see a normal “not-intellectual” high school student casually reading a non-assigned John Locke or Heidegger or Montaigne or Emerson in paperback in the park or something.
@moondrake
I have a bunch of friends who never made it past the slow intro to LOTR.
If you pay attention during the “The Shadow of the Past” chapter, and then make it as far as Weathertop, by then Tolkien’s writing and storytelling rhythm have kicked in. It gets way better after that.
Just skip past the songs and after that it’s good, unless it’s simply not to your taste at all.
Some of his writing is incredible. And gorgeous. I can’t think of any writer of the past 200 years who could imitate his style. Even parodies would be lame, if they were intended as stylistic parodies.
Sometimes I will stop and re-read simple scenery descriptions. But … you gotta make it to Weathertop first
His publishers couldn’t edit him. The editors didn’t have the needed skills. They just made suggestions on pacing, most of which he ignored. He had to do the full edits himself, which is incredibly difficult (editing yourself, I mean). He couldn’t afford a typist. He wound up typing the whole thing out himself 3 or 4 times.
When he worked on the OED, they gave him all the hard or wayward words no one else could do.
He prob knew the entire history of every word he used and every literary form he touched.
His invented languages are full languages. He had a bunch more. He was inventing full speakable, literary-depth languages before he learned to read, I think.
@mike808 Need a spoiler tag to really cover why I hated Donaldson’s Covenant series. However a paraphrased quote (that I did like) will have to do…
Think on Donaldson and be dismayed.
/giphy movies are about the best we’ll get, and the books only hold as well as they do thanks be the first in a very popular genre. At least the movies dropped Tom
@simplersimon I am OK with that gif. I wish his shirt was accurate. After the second book/movie, it really doesn’t.
@simplersimon
Out of boredom, how are you dividing up the books?
Hobbit as one book and 3 LotR books?
Hobbit as one book and LotR as 6 books?
@PlacidPenguin lotr as 3 books. Really the story climaxes at Helm’s Deep for me on either format. After that, pacing crumbles, and you get a lot of bloat. The book does it better, but it’s still not great. As for the Hobbit, the best format for that will always be the book, read aloud. It is rarely done poorly. Unlike Hobbit films. Seriously, Leonard Nimoy singing the Ballad of Bilbo Baggins is the closest we’ve come to a good Hobbit movie.
@simplersimon
I would disagree there. But I understand why some react that way.
Fantasy sucks. Didn’t read the books, because Tolkien sucks. Had high hopes for the movies (not really), because “Brain Dead” and “Bad Taste” freakin’ kill man - deep stuff. Alas, it was a boring snooze-fest. Not enough brains, not enough gore. What the fuck, Peter?
@serpent
It’s statements like this which baffle me.
@PlacidPenguin I know that it’s “Star Wars” + “Harry Potter” kinda stuff. Both of which suck too (haven’t seen either). So I base my educated opinion on that.
@serpent (I did actually watch LOTR though during a TV marathon - ain’t no way I would pay for that!)
@serpent
So you’re basing a series which you never watched on two series which came DECADES after the aforementioned one which you also never watched/read?
What did you base your opinions about the latter series on?
@serpent first cereal, now this?! You are a monster.
@PlacidPenguin Don’t be baffled. Just a troll (orc?) trying to get a reaction.
@PlacidPenguin I’ve seen the Family Guy remakes of Star Wars and also a 10-minute extract from the 1999 movie, so I believe I am qualified to judge it. As for Harry Potter… No clue, really.
@simplersimon I am flattered! Although I prefer to call myself a man of taste.
@SSteve Not really, I am just providing a dissenting viewpoint, of which I have many (@f00l won’t let me lie, as he probably read each and every post of mine). It’s always constructive to form a multi-dimensional picture instead of a choir of similar opinions, right? Otherwise it ends up being too one-sided.
@serpent
Nobody now remembers what trolling meant, when it was coined (not so long ago). It quickly became a fad word used for nearly any and all objectionable communication on the Internet.
Words should have meaning. Thank you for remembering.
@serpent
I’m obsessed with you. Completely.
No, really, I’m obsessed! Trust me! I’m obsessed, dammit!
I wish there was a “Have done both, love both” option. I read The Hobbit in the mid-70s when I was in junior high. I then tried LOTR but was a little too young to make it far into the first book. I never got around to trying again before the movies. So coming into the movies I was a little familiar with Bilbo and Gollem, but everything else was new. I didn’t bring any attachments with me so I was oblivious to Jackson’s departures from the books. I thought the movies were magical. Then I read the books and thought they were magical too.
@SSteve Have you thought about trying The Silmarillion?
@Al_Coholic
You have to have some stamina for that. Unfinished tales might be a better place for Tolkien storytelling. Or the new Beren and Luthien.
@f00l @Al_Coholic
I need some advice with regards to proper placement for Unfinished Tales, Beren and Luthien, and The Silmarillon in my closet.
I don’t plan on reading any of them, though I know the general idea of each of them.
Would they fit better on a shelf dedicated to book series (where they’d be lying horizontal), or on a shelf dedicated to misc books (where they’d be vertical) ?
@f00l That’s cool, I didn’t know that was being released as a standalone book. Thanks.
@SSteve i love this. Whenever i read a book i am reluctant to then see the movie (but still usually do unless it is Stephen King because most of his movies are horrible compared to the books). But i do like seeing a movie then reading the book sometimes: best of both because of the order.
Books are almost always better: more detail but more of your imagination involved, too.
@PlacidPenguin
Elaborate, pls?
@f00l
My book series shelf is overcrowded. When I kept A Series of Unfortunate Events there, they had to lie horizontal on top of 2 1/2 book series in stacks.
My shelf for misc books has room (especially since I moved a series from there to my book series shelf), and if I keep the 3 mentioned books there, they could be positioned vertically.
While doing the latter WOULD give them more room, technically they are connected to LotR.
However, they’re not necessarily DIRECTLY connected, which is why they shouldn’t go on my book series shelf.
@PlacidPenguin
Most of the Silmarillon is a huge overview of stuff from that happened 3000+ years in the past. It includes a full poetic creation story, and conflicts between metaphoric angels of dark and light, and falls from grace.
After a while the humans show up and the tales become much more normal.
Many people find it unreadable. Others sorta slog thru it. Much is written in high archaic speech appropriate for declaiming legends, not storytelling voices. The makes it rewarding to some, but hard going for many or most. The 2nd half of the book is much more readable than the first half.
There are some familiar characters with cameos: Elrond, Galadriel, Gandalf, Cirdan, Sauron, Saruman, perhaps I’m forgetting someone. Also Aragorn’s ancestors (this is a big deal).
Some of the stories are heartbreakingly beautiful.
I have never read all of "Unfinished Tales, but I believe they mostly concerns extending telling of a few stories from the Silmarillon and many stories the era between the climactic battle of the Silmarillon and the Hobbit/LOTR era. The stuff I’ve seen is pretty readable.
The two other books: “The Children Of Huron” and “Beren and Luthien” are novelistic expansions of two stories from The Silmarillon.
Both have humans (this is essential to Tolkien’s ability to tell a story that flows and makes you see it as it happens). If there are no humans, he tends to go a bit into archaic speech.
He loved that Beowulf-type stuff and he was possibly the most knowledgeable and influential scholar of his era on those sorts of texts.
@f00l
Ok, so they’ll fit in perfectly with the shelf for misc books.
@PlacidPenguin
I looked it all up.
The Silmarillion basically covers events from the beginning of “mythological time” thru the creation of the phisical universe (by music) and the thru the earliest years of elves, men, and dwarves. It starts with creation and with history of Tolkien’s versions of “angels”, the chief of whom falls into darkness thru pride, and who created much of the subsequent evil, including orcs, trolls, balrogs, dragons, and giant spiders.
Then some of the remaining “angels” settle on earth to get it prepared for the beings to come. They shape the world, thru many trials. Finally the dwarves and elves appear. In the meantime the most powerful fallen angel has corrupted other angels including Sauron, his chief second-in-command. There are a lot of wars and terrible crimes (which can be quite moving as myth in their own right and can be worth the reading).
Finally mortal humans show up. All the wars temporarily in abeyance start up again.
Near the end of the book (and the end of the “First Age”) come the stories of Beren and Luthien, and during the same time, a few years later, the story of Hurin and his children.
Finally the first and most powerful fallen angel is defeated, and the world is changed.
The Silmarillon also contains some notes on later events.
Unfinished Tales mostly concerns concerns the next period, the “Second Age”, and goes into what happened next to men, elves, and dwarves. It goes into the origins of Wizards.
At the end of the “Second Age” there is another big event, and the world and the political order are again changed. This book also has some notes on later times.
The Hobbit and LOTRtake place about 3000 years or so into the “Third Age”. The end of LOTR tells the very beginning of the “Fourth Age”.
So there is a sort of a sequence.
JRRT apparently wrote many drafts of every story and changed details and names. His universe was enormous, and he never got around to retconning it all into coherence.
He left so many notes and papers that when The Silmarillon and Unfinished Tales were published, his literary executors had then only gone thru only a fraction of the materials.
So perhaps more revisions and tales to come?
@f00l
Yay.
More books to buy which I won’t actually read.
@PlacidPenguin
Why buy and not read?
@f00l
Why not?
@PlacidPenguin
You indicate that you’re short of bookshelf space? And … uh … put $ toward something you might use?
@f00l The only consolation is that instead of buying physical copies of the new material, I can get the ebooks. No dusting required.
@f00l
wastespend.wastespend.@f00l
@f00l
Anyways, if you saw what my book shelves looked like, you might understand…
@PlacidPenguin
pix?
@f00l
Next up on the chopping block of books which I’ll selling will be my box set of A Song of Ice and Fire.
I struggled to finish the first book and stopped a little into the second book.
This will clear up a decent amount of room on my book series shelf.
/giphy Penguin celebrating
@PlacidPenguin
I quite liked SOIAF. Why did you not?
You might want to try out each of the 3 novella-length Tales of Dunk and Egg. Set in Westeros about 90 years before the beginning of GOT. Also very good, and perhaps far more to your taste.
Gotta be read in order.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_of_Dunk_and_Egg
Incidentally, JRRT also has Lost Tales 1 and 2. I haven’t read those yet, either. I think, like Unfinished Tales, most of those fill in parts of the backstory and history, but I could be wrong.
Love the movies. The books are sitting on my shelves, just haven’t gotten around to it yet. Tragic, I know.
No love for the cartoon Hobbit? I vaguely remember watching it in the 80s.
I know a lot of people hate the Hobbit trilogy… But I can’t. It brought me:
@RiotDemon The cartoon adaptations of LotR/RotK were something special also. That they didn’t even go together was just a bonus. Man there’s some weird stuff in there, but I still love them in their own way.
@RiotDemon Yeah, I’m a fan of Aidan Turner and while he’s always gorgeous, Kili was a good look on him.
@Nuurgle If you liked Ralph Bakshi’s animated interpretations of Tolkein’s work, you should see his own work, Wizards. He has a unique vision.
@moondrake Yeah, it always seemed like an animated issue of Heavy Metal magazine.
EDIT: I spoke too soon, hadn’t gotten to the Nazi part of the trailer yet.
@RiotDemon Too hot for a dwarf. But hot nonetheless.
@RiotDemon
In the opening scenes of the first Hobbit film, that clip where you see Richard Armitage hammering metal is there on purpose. For the reason you think it’s there.
/image armitage shirtless
@Fuzzalini I looked up photos of Richard Armitage and he’s alright. As Thorin though… Wow.
@moondrake Yes! Have you seen Poldark?
@f00l haha, I was just writing a comment that Armitage is just ok.
I only got to watch the Hobbit once… It’s odd that Thorin didn’t catch my eye that much until I was watching the second one with my partner who at the time had long hair as well. Then the similarities of their faces made me watch the last movie in a whole different light.
@RiotDemon
Hawt! Also an awesome voice.
/image Thorin
@sammydog01 Yep. And Being Human and Desperate Romantics. So yummy.
@Nuurgle Less sex, more meaning.
The LOTR movies were good; the Hobbit movies were a sell-out and an embarrassment, although it was nice to see Beorn make an appearance. Mostly they were an extended Hollywood chase scene; they couldn’t be troubled to have Gollum ask all his riddles or Smaug say all of his boasts. If somebody remixes
Props to the cartoon version of The Hobbit.
@PocketBrain
I don’t hate the PJ Hobbit trilogy. There are some very good moments in it.
The added stuff is not worth much tho. Would have been far better if just cut down to a single film.
@PocketBrain
Oh yeah.
Re Hobbit films. Given that PJ made 3 of them, why couldn’t we have a lot more Beorn?
I only read “The Hobbit” as a youngster, and when the LOTR movies came out, I remarked to my Tolkien-geek friends that Gollum was way different than I remembered. My recollection was he was a playful, relatively harmless imp and that he and Bilbo part amicably when Bilbo bests him in the riddle game. They told me my recall was way off.
Turns out, Tolkien actually revised Hobbit after the LOTR books came out to match them in tone. I had read the old version and my memory of the Gollum character was pretty accurate.
@DrWorm I think Tolkien retro-conned that by saying the new version of the riddle scene was more accurate and the original was Bilbo’s more colorful memory of it. The real reason, of course, is that he didn’t decide until later (LOTR) that the ring itself had much greater significance.
@DrWorm
If you read the original version of the Riddles in the Dark chapter as a kid, it’s interesting that you got that version. Copies of the 1937-1938 Hobbit have been going for thousands on the used book market ever since the 1960’s. Some of the cost what a house would cost, if they are in great shape with dust jacket.
Yeah, JRRT, when he decided to do a sequel for adults, needed the germ of an idea for a long story, and started with the ring and the Necromancer. So he had to make the ring dangerous. So he had to make Gollum pathetic and corrupted, a “fallen Hobbit”. He would need those characteristics in Gollum, for the thematic cycle, that the ring, in a way, helps to bring about its own end, and that Gollum, who only lives for want of it, ironically gets it in the end and, in a twisted sense, keeps his promises to Frodo.
So JRRT re-wrote Riddles In The Dark to suit the new version of the ring.
@f00l I have a sibling that is 14 years older than me and I know he read that copy when he was a kid. It would have been in our family certainly since the early/mid 50’s, possibly earlier. Probably wound up being sold at a garage sale for a quarter.
@PocketBrain
@DrWorm
Too bad your childhood copy may be lost. Worth taking a look for it perhaps, or are you sure it’s gone? That would be a find.
On eBay the cheapest US original version I can find is $949. The U.K. Versions are always much much more expensive. The cheapest one I see is over $15K.
Here are the original and the revised version of “Riddles in the Dark” side by side for comparison.
http://www.ringgame.net/riddles.html
I think The Annotated Hobbit also has extensive notes on this.
There were a few other changes in various editions (I have heard), and a few other differences between the 1937 version and the later big edit to match up to LOTR, but the rest of the changes were tiny. A word here or there, nothing to change anyone’s character or the nature of the story.
Tolkien even retconned a justification for the change in that chapter into LOTR.
In the 1937 version, “Riddles In the Dark” matches up pretty well to the story Bilbo tells the Dwarves after they find out that he has a special means to rescue them.
The later correctional idea is that he was embarrassed by the truth, not sure he hadn’t unfairly deceived Gollum, and wasn’t sure he really had a right to the ring; but the ring was already working on him, and under its influence, he wished to keep it a secret and entirely his. it took a long time to tell anyone, and then he prettied up the story and dissembled, which was supposedly very unlike him.
Then he got home and wrote up the fake version into the story that became the original Hobbit.
But Gandalf never believed that version, and finally got the true story out of Bilbo. So then Bilbo wrote up a second version of his adventure, this one the honest one. And in the years before LOTR the only two who saw either version was Gandalf and Frodo.
And all that is discussed early in Fellowship.
“Riddles in the Dark” contains some very clever and insightful literary uses of simple phrases, riddles, and images. Tolkien maybe archaic, but he knew what he was doing as a writer.
My partner is a huge Tolkien nerd. I made a deal with them a while back where I’d read the LotR books if they read the Hitchhiker’s Trilogy.
I got the short end of the stick on that. Not a very short end, but I think they enjoyed Hitchhiker’s more than I enjoyed LotR.
If you are a LOTR fan, do yourself a favor and check out the BBC audio drama.
@darksaber99999
The US audio drama versions are a disaster. Many of the actors played multiple roles, they recorded the lines separately and alone instead of interactively. Just really bad.
But … they are about the only dramatic version that ever left in Tom Bombadil.
All those elf songs or whatever really turned me off the books. I couldn’t deal. A shame too, because as child I saw a LOTR cartoon that motivated me to read them, but it was not to be.
@ACraigL
The songs are often an annoying PITA, with a few exceptions.
Tolkien was a medievalist and loved that stuff. So he self-indulged. Although, in his defense, the songs would make far sense to pre-industrial civilizations with no mass media.
Most of the poems and verses make a modern reader cringe. The best ones are in elvish, or else the Rohirrim get them.
If you want to read the books otherwise, just skip them or skim them.
Not much wrong with this lament;
An abbreviated version is beautifully done in the TTT film by Bernard Hill, playing Theoden
Incidentally, both the BBC radio play production and and the Rob Inglis audiobooks do pretty well with the verse and poetry, even the worst of it.
Turns out to be way better to listen to and way worse to read, at least when it’s well-performed by someone who can pull it off.
@ACraigL I skipped them.
I read the books, did a book report for “The Hobbit” in maybe the 6th grade (in the 60’s).
The books really set your imagination going, also it required you to keep track of different characters and plots.
The LOTR books, that I read sometime in junior high school, did the same, but with more plots to keep going in your mind as you read along.
I’m glad I didn’t see the movies until much later. The movie interpretation of what the characters looked like was much different than mine. The orcs were much scarier-looking than I ever imagined in my mind! I did like the movies, if just to follow what I remember from the books.
I do consider these to be among the best fictional/fantasy books for school-age kids to read.
Gave up on the books after I can’t even remember how many damn chapters of Tom Bombadil’s Adventures in Doing Absolutely Nothing of Consequence Whatsoever
@InfidelCastro
Bombadil has stopped a bunch of readers. Many aficionados love him, but … Bombadil is a total writer self-indulgence. Tolkien basically used him in part just so that he could play around with certain kinds of verse and certain sorts of Nordic myths.
If you were to try again, perhaps just skip all that and start at A Knife In The Dark.
Incidentally, some of Bombadil’s speech is pretty good. So the films stole those lines from Bombadil and gave them to Treebeard.
PJ and the screenwriters did a lot of stealing words and phrases from one place and putting them elsewhere, in order to keep as many of Tolkien’s best phrases and passages in the film, when they were clipping the books down to screenplays.
This might be a better sequel…
Lord of the Anal Ring Toss
Howard Stern E! Show
Uncensored…Just a warning!!
https://www.pornhub.com/view_video.php?viewkey=2024494766
@somf69
Heard that show air live. OMG.
Funny and revolting all at once.
Read The Hobbit before the Hobbit movies came out. Definitely preferred the book and wasn’t a fan of all of the movies (I liked Desolation of Smaug). They really should have made one.
Saw the LOTR movies. I guess I was worn out from hobbit overload because I started reading Fellowship of the Ring and just stopped. Would like to finish them someday.
What a difference a scene with a fantastic score can make.
Another perfectly scored scene. And the Balrog looks terrific.