Sat Aug 11 11:12:31 EDT 2007
Time for Reading
WARNING: Tolkien Geek Ramblings Below. Continue at your own risk. 
I am very happy I'm done with my tests because now I can actually take time for pleasure reading and not feel guilty. As a result, I finally finished pass four of The Lord of the Rings. This time I did something different though, I actually read a big hunk of the appendices. There was a nice summary of the relevant histories of Numenor and it's downfall. It also went into the histories of the Northern Kingdom (Arnor) and it's fall. Essentially, all the stuff that is relevant to the story but only as background. It's not essential for enjoyment of the story but for crazies like me it adds depth to the story. Having read the Silmarillion I was already familiar with much of it but it was nice to have a summary rather than reading the Silmarillion again. For as good as The Silmarillion is it is far from easy reading.
Another interesting section for the semi-hardcore was the bit on Durin's Folk (aka Dwarves) which went into stuff about Thorin Oakenshield, how the dwarves were driven from Moria and how they came to live in the Lonely Mountain. Of less interest was the histories of the Rohirrim. I'm not sure why I didn't find it interesting because I've always liked their race in the story.
Probably the best section and most relevant to the books themselves was the story of Arwen and Aragorn. I know Arwen was a major character in the movies but in the books she really doesn't appear much. Much like the story of Beren and Luthien the story of Aragorn and Arwen is actually pretty darn sad. After Aragorn's death Arwen goes to Lothlorien, which is of course abandoned at this point since most of the Elves have already left for Valinor. There she dies alone unable to ever go to Valinor and see her people even if she tried to.
Whew, all of this is in the first appendix! There's still B through F which I may read some more of later.
I am very happy I'm done with my tests because now I can actually take time for pleasure reading and not feel guilty. As a result, I finally finished pass four of The Lord of the Rings. This time I did something different though, I actually read a big hunk of the appendices. There was a nice summary of the relevant histories of Numenor and it's downfall. It also went into the histories of the Northern Kingdom (Arnor) and it's fall. Essentially, all the stuff that is relevant to the story but only as background. It's not essential for enjoyment of the story but for crazies like me it adds depth to the story. Having read the Silmarillion I was already familiar with much of it but it was nice to have a summary rather than reading the Silmarillion again. For as good as The Silmarillion is it is far from easy reading.
Another interesting section for the semi-hardcore was the bit on Durin's Folk (aka Dwarves) which went into stuff about Thorin Oakenshield, how the dwarves were driven from Moria and how they came to live in the Lonely Mountain. Of less interest was the histories of the Rohirrim. I'm not sure why I didn't find it interesting because I've always liked their race in the story.
Probably the best section and most relevant to the books themselves was the story of Arwen and Aragorn. I know Arwen was a major character in the movies but in the books she really doesn't appear much. Much like the story of Beren and Luthien the story of Aragorn and Arwen is actually pretty darn sad. After Aragorn's death Arwen goes to Lothlorien, which is of course abandoned at this point since most of the Elves have already left for Valinor. There she dies alone unable to ever go to Valinor and see her people even if she tried to.
Whew, all of this is in the first appendix! There's still B through F which I may read some more of later.