Tolkienation

To say that i am huge Tolkien fan would be a euphemism. if i were not an atheist and i did believe in rebirth.. i would kill to be Merry/Pippin. You might think an odd choice, but if you knew my lazy self you would nod in appreciation. Being Gandalf/Frodo/Aragorn/Sam is basically too much work and pain. Any other character would be too far on the fringes without any scope for proper attention . These guys are there for all the cool parts of the book-the Ents, the battles; and they happen to be end up being the most handsome guys in the Shire. Must have really scored with the girls :p. Anways back to Tolkien, i have read 3 of his works.. LoTR, the Hobbit and the Silmarillion,multiple readings of all of them. While my feelings towards the Hobbit are ambivalent, i absolutely love the other 2. There are outside chances of better plots out there, but i cannot fathom something that is more dazzling in the grandeur and scale of the world it is set in. Imagine a person spending a better part of 2 decades or more, trying to lend as much authenticity and character to these imagined worlds. I hardly have the patience to spend 10 mins posting an update to this blog.

But there are two things that captivate me about the Professor's works. One is the kind of bluesy longing that the writing manages to evoke in the reader. I have never been able to explain why but i always wanted to be a part of that majestic, yet ultimately, a tale of beautiful sadness. The other thing is essentially the lyrical quality of the prose. The words, names and the places are to die for. He seems to innately understand what sounds (and means) good or bad. Not surprising considering he was a professor of linguistics and not literature. Hear about names like Elbereth and Feanor, Brandybuck and Cirdan, Grima and Saruman and places like Eregion and Arda, Shire and Mordor and you don't need to read the book to know which ones are the good ones and which ones belong to the dark side. This is a particularly noticeable aspect of his writings and he talks about trying to excel at this "linguistic aesthetics" in a letter written to the publisher of the Silmarillion.

One of my desires have been to own all of the good Prof's works and already own 2 of them. I am torn about what to buy next , either the Children of Hurin or The Unfinished Tales of Middle Earth. I always felt sad that JRR did not get to publish more but today i had a pleasant surprise. Looks like they managed to dig out an old work of the Master and are going to publish it. Hurray!! It is of course a tale unconnected to the LoTR and it's world, but it does seem to be of the same "legendary" nature as his most famous work. looking forward to it. For folks who have not read Tolkien , i suggest that you give him a chance. Do not be put off by the size of the tome. By the time you are done with it, you would wish that it was another 800 pages longer.

-shri