Writing about something that’s extremely popular can be difficult. Mostly due to the constant nagging feeling of – can I even say/write anything that’s worth writing that hasn’t been discussed to death by now? Well, The Middle-Earth books by J. R. R. Tolkien aren’t just “extremely popular” – they’re a natural part of culture, part of how people perceive any fantasy world (at least in the “Western World”), something that remains as inspirational and rich as it used to be when the books just got published.
Now, they weren’t as much of a revelation for me as they were for lots of people. Yet, even when I originally read The Hobbit as a kid, in some abridged version with illustrations for each page, I felt as if this work existed from before the beginning of time and will exist forever since. Weaving together western and northern world mythologies, using his linguistics skills and immense imagination John Ronald Reuel Tolkien has created something that has been imitated numerous times since. Yet often never reaching the same density and believability of the world of Middle-Earth Tolkien created.
So, a short while ago I decided to finally revisit the 3 main works set in the Middle-Earth: The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion. And here’s what I thought of them now.
Often times looking back at The Hobbit I thought that it was a pretty short story. That’s probably that first experience with an abridged copy interfering with my memories, because The Hobbit is not short at all. In fact, it’s about as long as The Silmarillion or The Two Towers. The amount of events in that relatively simple tale is incredible, hence why, I would assume, abridged versions were created in the first place.
And while it never gets proper boring, this simplicity of the tale sometimes gets in the way of enjoyment when considering the time it takes to read it. Some adventures Bilbo Baggins gets into feel unnecessary for the overall pace, some just a bit too long. If you’re reading the book for the first time, you might even find some episodes in it a bit weird, as they clearly hint at something grand happening somewhere outside of the pages of the book. And that something sounds far more exciting than whatever you’re reading about. Yet, reading The Hobbit can still be fun today, even if it might feel somewhat non-essential if you get interested in the overall story of the Middle-Earth, as despite seeing a lot of somewhat important events happen on the pages of this book, you get far more context for these events in other books.
The Lord of the Rings, one of the most monumentally important fantasy novels in three volumes, still holds up today, however. Based on some of my memories from when I first read it, and on my first experiences of watching the fantastic Peter Jackson adaptations of the novel, I was somewhat afraid that some of the sections will drag on, but most of my fears were all for naught. In fact, one gigantic section, that is actually almost entirely missing from the adaptations, the introductory adventure of the hobbits as they set out on their long adventure, is one of the most exciting parts of the novel. Despite lacking any grand events, the mood of the travel, of going out on adventure and learning new things about a gigantic and exciting (and quite dangerous) world is absolutely perfect.
The only meaningful faults the novel has today is that in The Two Towers it divides the adventures from two different teams into two separate “books”, leading to rather uneven pacing. I could almost see Tolkien living today revisiting the book and making it so the story goes back and forth between the viewpoints, especially since that’s exactly what he does in a far more enjoyable manner in the middle parts of The Return of the King. “The Ring Goes East” doesn’t get too much of a slog to get through, but it’s pace is a bit harder to enjoy, especially after reading about such exciting and high-paced events as the ones in “The Treason of Isengard”. And yes, I am well aware that I’ve just called Ents “high-paced events”.
There are some oddities in The Lord of the Rings, especially one as it is published today, with it’s gigantic collection of appendices taking up more than the half of the last book. Yet, in terms of its story arcs, in terms of the world building, the character development, the events and pretty much everything else, including aforementioned appendices, The Lord of the Rings is a joy to read through. Even after the great adaptations, even after so many pieces of entertainment set in the same time period, even after so many works of fiction trying to copy it, it’s worth reading.
The Silmarillion was a genuine surprise to me, since I’ve not read it before. After many years of seeing people joke about how difficult to read it might be, how it is often brought up as the choice of the snobbish readers, how it’s not that particularly good, I found it to be extremely fun. And the only reason why I haven’t enjoyed The Silmarillion the same way I enjoyed The LOTR comes down to the fact that The Silmarillion is more of a polished up collection of unfinished stories and ideas, rather than a complete finished work from Tolkien. Published posthumously and edited together by Christopher Tolkien (son of J.R.R.) with additional help by Guy Gavriel Kay, this book has several, unfortunately unfinished, works by J.R.R. talking about the history spanning thousands of years leading up to the events of The Lord of the Rings.
It’s a “Middle-Earth Bible”, if we insert christian parallels, that talks about the creation of the world, about the life and myths of early elves, about their “original sin”, about the chaos and changes of the earth, about great wars and great feats of ancient heroes. And it’s absolutely mindbogglingly great and inspirational. How is it that none of the stories from The Silmarillion have been adapted to anything is genuinely beyond me, as the potential here is insane. Of all its parts, probably only one that feels disappointingly short is the Akallabêth, mostly due to how curious the culture of the Númenor feels, yet how brief the talk about it is. Which, again, calls for more adaptations and works set in these exciting periods of Eä (the name of the Tolkien’s world), instead of seeing yet another visit to the War of the Ring era.
I decided not to check the rest of the unfinished but since published works of Tolkien set in Middle-Earth, for now a least. To be fair, even LOTR itself can be enough to get you excited about this world, if you’re not familiar with it already. But if you haven’t read The Silmarillion yet, I urge you to do so. I’m glad that I’ve finally gotten the chance.