Lord Of The Rings

Typically published in three volumes:

ISBN 06-1800-222-7 Fellowship of the Ring
ISBN 06-1800-223-5 The Two Towers
ISBN 06-1800-224-3 The Return of the King

Factually Speaking:

The Downfall of the Lord of the Rings and the Return of the King is a single, huge novel in six books (plus appendices) typically published in three volumes (but not a "trilogy") by JrrTolkien.

It details the end of the "Third Age of the Sun", as witnessed by peoples living on Earth in the deep past in a world shared by greater magical powers than ours. This world contains divine and profane beings who are natively immortal; that implies they can maintain the same kinds of eternal political associations that our human dynasties pretend to maintain via primogeniture.

Each "Age of the Sun" ends with the vanquishing of the most powerful evil god still living on Earth, so the epic story of this 3rd theocide symbolizes the transition from a Magic Earth to the scientific one we know; the Dawn of the Dominion of Man. For this reason, the theocide is committed - albeit with great supernatural assistance - by some of the smallest and quietest of the natural humanoids living in that world. -- PhilipCraigPlumlee

So, in the scientific age, who is the most powerful evil god that we most exorcise to move? I don't write UnitTests. Here's a Ring and a map. Good luck!

Recently produced as a video game -- oops I mean a movie. Much of this was very correctly researched; elves have leaf-shaped ears, and Hobbits have slightly pointed ears. Tolkienistas research these details in his published letters.

Allegorically Speaking:

The Lord of the rings (JrrTolkien) is to fantasy fiction what, TheArtOfComputerProgramming (DonaldKnuth) is to programming.

The Art of Computer Programming and The Lord of the rings may not actually be the beginning of all GoodThings (each in their own field) but for a large slice of the human race it seems that way. It is not claimed that

there have not been 'better books written' since
all that followed stemmed from this cause
they were even the first
The Hobbit is not a Great Book (It even came first)

it is just that we owe these books homage as our starting point.

-- AlanChristiansen

PS Be warned that to some people, these tomes are theological works and critics better wear flame proof underwear.

Antithesis The Lord of the Rings is XXXX (Expletive deleted)

If you want to read a "good" book try Bored of the Rings

BlackHat

Retort

See how good the The Lord of the Rings is, even a parody of it that is attempting to ridicule it, is a great book!

WhiteHat

If The Art of Computer Programming is the Lord of the Rings of the computer world, does that make KentsBook HarryPotter? yes

Allegorically Speaking:

The Lord of the rings (JrrTolkien) is to fantasy fiction what, TheArtOfComputerProgramming (DonaldKnuth) is to programming.

In that they are both incomprehensible?? --Wait for the movie--

The ArtOfComputerProgramming is coming out in a movie? -))

Yep, first they are making volumes 4,5,6 then going back for 1,2,3

Bet it wont be as good as the books -((

Nah, it will never happen. DonaldKnuth would spend ten years creating a movie-production control language before filming could start.

I want that language! -- JohnAldis

What! TeX can't do movies?! õ_õ

The Lord of the Rings was originally started to capture the atmosphere of the Welsh country side. Tolkien disliked development, the newer houses and roads and way of life. So maybe that is why the LOTR is so much better than most other fantasy novels... because the country and beauty of the place, and the way of life is just as important as the story. Later fantasy novels seem to focus on the battles and swords and good vs evil

Welsh? Seems unlikely - what's that based on? Thames Valley & Oxford seems more likely, since that's where Tolkien was living and working, and he wasn't a great traveller (and there's a reason why it's "The Shire"). But on some idealised view of the British pastoral environment, agreed.

In his youth JRRT both climbed mountains (I suspect in Wales) and fought in the trenches in WWI. There's just a scrap of these experiences peeking thru in his writings ;-)

(see http://www.fortunecity.com/westwood/naked/132/tolkintro.html)

To me it would seem the LotR series was started with the poetry concerning Tom Bombadil, which was featured in the Tokien Reader. However, I'm fairly greatful of that part being omitted from the movie adaptation. It was, I thought, just a little too silly.

I saw an article in the Western Mail (a newspaper here in Wales) that said that Tolkien was inspired by the celtic languages. It said:

When he was a child living in Birmingham he was inspired by coal trucks bearing names like nantyglo, Penrhiwceiber and Senghenydd.
Tolkien annotated a speech he gave with this: "The names of persons and places in this story were mainly composed on patterns deliberately modelled on those of Welsh"
"Arwen" could well be a female form of the Welsh name "Arwyn"
The misty mountains could well be the black mountains which he visited.
Apparently the elvish language "sindarin" is based on welsh.
After his parents died he was brought up by a welsh priest.

Similarities I've spotted:

Real welsh names that would look at home in middle earth: Anwen, Arwel, Eirionwen, Eifion, Ithel (is there an Ithel's bane?)
There are dwarves with names that look close to the common welsh name for coal: glo. (Gloin in particular looks like the less frequently used welsh word for coal: gl�yn.)
Rhandir (the welsh word for a divison of a country)
"Minas" a word Tolkien used for "tower". When travelling in wales you'll see signs like "Dinas <cityname>". Dinas means "city".
The acute accents on so many of the names look more like irish gaelic (though I don't speak gaelic).
Very rarely in the film one or two words (spoken by the elves) did sound like the welsh equivalent.
Tolikien's stories of middle earth do seem a lot like the mabinogion - stories that come from traditional welsh mythology. This makes me wonder if there'd be a market for a film based on the mabinogion?

A quote from Tolkien confirming that Sindarin is partially based on Welsh: "The living language of the Western Elves (Sindarin or Grey-elven) is the one usually met [in LotR], especially in names. This is derived from an origin common to it and Quenya, but the changes have been deliberately devised to give it a linguistic character very like (though not identical with) British-Welsh: because that character is one I find, in some linguistic moods, very attractive; and because it seems to fit the rather 'Celtic' type of legends and stories told of its speakers".

The other Elvish language, Quenya, draws from Latin, Finnish, and Greek.

For more information, you might take a look at the Ardalambion website (http://www.uib.no/People/hnohf/), which seems to be the most comprehensive online guide to Tolkien's languages.

-- MossCollum

Mr. T started the elvish poetry that lead to these languages after leanring in college that all British Isles mythologies had been traced to mainland sources. He felt he wanted to simulate what an "Out-Of-Britain" mythology would sound like. -- PhlIp

I consider myself very fortunate to have discovered Tolkien at just the right age - 13.

I thought 9 was better. Read the Hobbit then, and you will want to stretch a bit and read the others. Fond memories :)

It is long, it can be boring, but it is a GoodThing.

Trivia:

In Brazil, different translators worked in the book in the first translation. One of the results were characters changing names from one book to the other.

Current translation fixed it.

A small quote, for those who don't know Tolkien's style:

: The great shadow descended like a falling cloud. and behold! it was a winged creature: if bird, then greater than all other birds, and it was naked, and neither quill nor feather did it bear, and its vast pinions were as webs of hide between horned fingers; and it stank. A creature of an older world maybe it was, whose kind, lingering in forgotten mountains cold beneath the Moon, outstayed their day, and in hideous eyrie bred this last untimely brood, apt to evil. And the Dark Lord took it, and nursed it with fell meats, until it grew beyond the measure of all other things that fly; and he gave it to his servant to be his steed. Down, down it came, and then, folding its fingered webs, it gave a croaking cry, and settled upon the body of Snowmane, digging in its claws, stooping its long naked neck.

Notice the small things; fingered webs, not webbed fingers.

What's interesting is that the style becomes more archaic as the books progress and as the characters involved become more "lordly". i.e. Fellowship is mostly about hobbits and is written in a very accessible style, whereas Return is more about battles between the great and the style is as you see quoted above. -- MarkTilley

Indeed. One of the best aspects of the writing is how the darkness in the story gradually infects the very text you're reading as the characters progress from the "silly" Shire to the desolate volcanic ash of Mount Doom. The progression is totally lost in the movie versions which start off with "flashbacks" to the previous ages of war.

If you want to learn more, go straight to the wiki that is devoted to the literary works of JRR Tolkien: http://thetolkienwiki.org/wiki.cgi

The rich and complex books were made into a film trilogy by PeterJackson who necessarily trimmed down the story to fit into the filmatic experience. See: LordOfTheRingsPartOne, LordOfTheRingsPartTwo, LordOfTheRingsPartThree

"Peter Jackson's movies admirably revealed the power of the printed word" --PhlIp oooh, nice one! - mt

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